As we get towards the end the Lenten season, I’ve finally tried the second of my three Dopplebocks. This one is Grand Teton Double Vision Dopplebock. It is an American brewery’s take on a traditional German recipe. According to their website, Grand Teton wanted to highlight their local water and ingredients. It of course uses local 2-row and other local specialty grains. instead of continental Malt. Although, they do use German Munich. Even their hops are American versions of traditional German hops.

If you took a Hallertau Mittelfruh and tried to grow it in Idaho, it would not taste like one grown in Germany. Like grapes, hops have terrier, so their aroma and flavor comes both from the variety of hop used and the it is grown. The liberty hops are a descendant of Hallertau mixed with another hop variety. This hop, when grown in the US, produces an aroma and flavor similar to a Hallertau grown in Germany.

The mouthfeel is slightly smaller than the Asam. There is medium carbonation. It has a dark brown-black color with an off white head. Very drinkable despite the high alcohol content.

It smelled like malt and leather. The taste follows the aroma with malt and leather. It is not as sweet as the Asam, and lacks any of the dark fruit flavors. There is also a bit of bitterness. As it warms you definitely get good alcohol warming.

Sommeliers will tell you that one of the flavors of a good Shiraz will be leather (earthy, tobacco, and wood are some others). Shiraz being my favorite wine style, I’ve had a few in my day. I’ve never got as good of a leather flavor as in this. You get upfront leather, but not in a bad way. This is my favorite Dopplebock.

The Lenten Season in the Christian Calendar is suppose to be a time of fasting and self denial. Despite this, some wiley renaissance monks were able to convince the Pope that during lent they should be able to drink as much of a delicious, malty, and very sweet beer that they came up with. A beer nutritious enough to live off of.

This beer style doesn’t seem to very widespread in my area. Most places I looked didn’t have any in the style, and the one big liquor store I found didn’t even have the original Paulenor Salvator anymore. I ended up with Weltenburger Kloster Asam Bock as well as 2 other slightly less traditional versions I’ll talk about in Parts 2 and 3 of this series.

The Aroma was very malty and earthy. I would also say that there was a musky and even leathery flavor to it. Very intriguing. I don’t smell leather in a lot of beers. I’ve heard leather tasting descriptions of Shiraz Wine, but this is more leathery than any Shiraz I have ever had. Upon tasting it you immediately notice the sweetness. It has some dark fruit and raisin flavor, with a bit of candy sugar. In that aspect it very much reminds me of some dark Belgian beers. When it warms a bit, you get some coffee and a bit of bitterness. There is no hop flavors as expected. Some people claim there is a smokey flavor, but I don’t get that at all. It has a big mouthfeel, like a milkshake. This is the true liquid bread. It is a rich black color, with a white head.

This is an exceptionally delicious beer, and it is very drinkable. You could definitely live off of this for 40 days.

Something you immediately find out when you have your first good ordinary bitter is that it is neither ordinary nor particularly bitter. In a world with double imperial IPAs, it doesn’t take somebody baptized in the Church of Hopheadism to drink this beer. It might be one of the best examples of traditional English beer styles and the American styles based on them. American beers are more brash, are more extreme, and maybe even more exciting. On the other hand, British beers are about balance, they are more comforting, but they are still complex.

I decided a few months ago that I should switch between a bigger beer and more of a session beer each time I brew. My last beer was my robust porter, clocking in at over 6% alcohol, so this time I figured I should go in the complete opposite direction. A beer that is under 4% alcohol and one balanced towards bitter. This is what the word bitter in the style really means, balanced towards bitter.

A lot of help this brew dog is going to be.

We sit in a wonderful world where you can get almost any beer you have ever wanted. Last weekend I had a Finnish style Sahti made by one of the Goose Island Brewpubs (very good). It is a style of beer traditionally flavored and filtered through juniper berries and twigs. This beer styles essentially died out decades ago, yet I just had it at a local brewpub in a location thousands of miles from its origin. The world that original bitter came out of was very different. In the early 19th century, the beer world was very different. Pale malt had just come on the scene, and England basically had 3 types of beer. A brown Mild, a darker Porter, and then a new pale ale generally hopped at a higher level than the mild or Porter. Later on brewers who bottled tended to call their beers pale ales, while brewers called beers in casks bitters. Strangely, any of the beers, either cask or bottle, from Burton-on-Trent where still called pale ales. I can’t figure out the reasoning, but it’s strange how names appear.

The word ordinary comes from the amount of alcohol. The lower alcohol beer would be the everyday ordinary beer you drank all night at the pub. The Special Bitter used better ingredients and more of them. They saved the Extra Special Bitter for celebrations and extra special occasions.

The other day I measured the gravity at about 1014. That’s probably as low as this yeast is going to get. I just need to find a few hours to remove labels and then bottle. I did use whirflock, which should clear the beer, but it looks very cloudy. Maybe it needs some time to settle, it has only been a week.